Moreno Valley Brain Injury Lawyers
After sustaining a brain injury, you likely don’t feel “up” to making major decisions concerning your legal situation. This is understandable, as the physical, mental, and emotional consequences of sustaining head trauma can be, to put the situation mildly, intense. However, it’s important to speak with an experienced attorney about your situation as soon as you possibly can, if your head trauma resulted – at least, in part – due to another’s negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous conduct. You may be entitled to significant compensation as a result of your head trauma and waiting to begin the process of exercising your rights as an injury victim could compromise your ability to receive the maximum amount of compensation to which you are entitled under the circumstances.
If you aren’t feeling fully capable of processing or retaining information at this time, please feel free to bring a trusted loved one along when you attend a no-cost, risk-free, confidential consultation with our experienced legal team. That way, your loved one can take notes, voice concerns, and ask questions too and you can ultimately make informed decisions about your legal situation together. Recovery from brain trauma generally takes a great deal of time and resources. Exploring your legal options can help to ensure that you aren’t ultimately saddled with the financial burdens related to recovery from your injuries.
Effective Representation for Brain Injury Victims
An in-depth understanding of how brain trauma affects injury victims’ lives, ability to work, and the injury recovery process overall is necessary in order to represent the interests of head trauma and brain injury victims as effectively as possible. Not every personal injury law firm specializes in brain trauma cases. However, our firm has extensive experience handling both relatively straightforward and unusually complex brain injury cases. When you work with our firm, you’ll benefit from the knowledge that you have experienced, capable, and tenacious legal advocates representing your interests. You’ll also benefit from the focused, client-centric, personalized approach to representation that has allowed our firm to develop a reputation for excellence. Please allow us the opportunity to provide you with information about our approach to the attorney-client relationship and to address any questions you may have about our firm’s practice during your free consultation.
Common Reasons Why Victims File Brain Trauma Claims
You may have solid grounds upon which to file a personal injury claim for any number of reasons. Successful brain injury claims are most commonly filed as a result of the following case types:
- Slip and fall, trip and fall, and fall accidents generally
- Auto accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Medical negligence and medical malpractice scenarios
- Birth-related brain trauma
- Contact sports injuries
- Work-related accidents
- Defective products
- Abuse and assault
- Near-drowning
- Explosions
Why Exploring Your Legal Options Is a Time-Sensitive Matter
Too often, brain injury victims are unaware of just how financially burdensome their condition has become until they are hit with the twin forces of overwhelming medical bills and the consequences of lost wages. This is one of the many reasons why it’s important to schedule a free consultation with our firm as soon as you can. The quicker you alert our team to your situation, the quicker we can begin seeking any and all compensation to which you may be entitled. That way, your family finances will be as minimally impacted as possible as we seek compensation on your behalf.
Additionally, you may or may not be aware that the law only gives you so long to file legal action before you’ll be prohibited from filing claims related to your brain trauma. If your injuries occurred while you were engaged in work-related activity, you need to complete specific actions within 30 days or you risk being barred from seeking workers’ compensation benefits. Although California law grants you between one and two years to file a personal injury claim – depending on the cause of your injuries – you’ll want to act quickly to explore your options so that our firm can preserve evidence related to your case. If critical evidence is compromised over time, you may be awarded far less compensation than you would be if your case was as strong as it could possibly be.
Filing a Legal Claim May Facilitate Your TBI Recovery Over Time
Brain injury recovery often takes a notoriously long time. Pushing too hard, too soon can result in exacerbation of symptoms and can lead to semi-permanent and even permanent damage. As a result, it’s critically important that you seek the medical care you require and rest as much as your physicians order you to. For many brain injury victims, resting sufficiently and seeking required medical care is contingent upon obtaining compensation to cover medical costs and lost earnings. When you make the effort to seek any and all compensation to which you may be entitled, you are – in effect – facilitating the financial reality that will allow you to recover to the best of your ability.
How Issues of Fault and Causation May Affect Your Case
Unless you experienced harm due to certain product defects that may be governed by a legal theory known as “strict liability,” you will pursue any personal injury action against those responsible for your harm subject to a specific legal progression. Essentially, once we’ve determined the cause(s) of your brain injuries, we’ll work to determine fault for that causation. In order to file a personal injury case against a defendant successfully, we’ll need to prove that the defendant was legally bound to treat you in a specific way (this is known as a duty of care). We will then need to prove that the defendant – whether the defendant is an individual, a corporation, or another legal entity – breached their duty of care by engaging in intentionally dangerous, negligent, or reckless conduct. We will finally need to prove that this breach served as a substantial factor in the causation of your injuries.
It is important to understand that California’s comparative negligence approach to fault means that you will remain entitled to hold others responsible for their negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous conduct, even if you were partially to blame for your injurious circumstances. Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system, so you will likely remain able to claim these benefits for work-related harm, even if the injurious circumstances in question were completely your fault.
Note that if you suffered a brain injury as a result of an assault, violence, or other criminal wrongdoing, your civil case will be distinct from any criminal proceedings related to your situation. Regardless of whether those responsible are held criminally accountable, you may be able to hold them accountable successfully in a civil context.
Insurance and Settlement Challenges
If you have been offered a settlement, do not sign any paperwork related to that offer until our knowledgeable legal team has evaluated the terms in question. If the terms are unfairly structured or if you’re being offered far less than the amount you are rightfully entitled to, know that signing the settlement paperwork you have been offered may bar you from seeking additional compensation from those who may be held legally liable for the harm you have suffered. Once our legal team has objectively evaluated your settlement offer, we’ll provide you with our assessment of whether the offer you’ve been extended is fair and whether it may be in your best interests to accept the offer or to reject it in favor of alternative forms of legal and financial recourse.
Similarly, it is best to avoid speaking with insurance representatives and other parties involved in your case until you’ve spoken with our team. Any party – including insurance representatives – that may owe you compensation has a vested interest in trying to minimize the compensation amount you’re owed. As a result, anything you say to others involved in your case may be used as an excuse to devalue or reject your claims for compensation. Allowing our legal team to speak with interested parties on your behalf will help to ensure that you receive any and all compensation you might be entitled to at this time.
If You Were Working When Your Brain Was Injured
Brain injury victims often have multiple legal options available to them in the event that they sustained head trauma due to work-related activities. Whether you were injured in a motor vehicle crash while running to the supply store on behalf of your employer or you were injured when you fell off scaffolding on a construction site, you may be eligible to claim workers’ compensation benefits, file a personal injury lawsuit, seek an insurance settlement, or pursue any combination of these options.
You are likely eligible to file a workers’ compensation claim related to your brain injury if you work for a company that employs more than a few workers and you are classified as a full-time or part-time employee. Because workers’ compensation is a no-fault system (unlike the personal injury claims process) you will remain entitled to receive these benefits even if the circumstances leading to your brain injury were partially or totally your fault. Your claim should only be rejected if you weren’t engaging in work-related activities at the time you were harmed, you were harmed because you started a physical altercation, you were drunk or high when your brain was injured, or you were purposefully trying to hurt yourself in an attempt to commit workers’ compensation fraud.
Note that independent contractors, workers of certain specialty industries, and employees of unusually small companies are generally exempt from workers’ compensation coverage. However, there are exceptions to this rule, which is one of the reasons why it’s important to avoid making assumptions about your eligibility before speaking with our firm. Note also that workers’ compensation benefits eligibility is not affected by documentation status in California. Both documented and undocumented qualifying employees alike are eligible to receive these benefits.
Contact Our Firm Today for a Free Case Evaluation
If you have suffered a brain injury and are hesitant to explore your legal options because you don’t yet feel capable of processing all relevant information due to side effects from your head trauma, know that this situation is an exceptionally common challenge faced by brain injury victims. Please, feel free to bring along a trusted loved one to your free, risk-free, confidential consultation so that your loved one can help you make informed decisions about your situation that are in your best interests.
It can be tempting to wait to explore your options until you’re feeling more recovered. However, the financial consequences of your injury may be affecting your family’s finances by then. Act quickly, with a trusted loved one by your side, to speak with our firm so that we can begin protecting your rights as an accident victim and exploring any and all legal options available to you at this time. We look forward to speaking with you.